Then the enemy disappeared, gone to ground, and Sharpe knew the rush was coming.
‘Forget the patches!’
It was faster to load a naked ball, even though the rifle lost its accuracy, and then he whistled at them, pulling them back, keeping low, so that the enemy would charge an empty piece of ground and find itself under fire from new cover.
‘Wait for them!’
They waited. There were French shouts, French cheers, and the men in blue and red were criss-crossing towards them, muskets and bayonets catching the light, and still they came and Sharpe knew they were outnumbered horribly, but it was always best to wait.
‘Wait! Wait!’ He saw a confused enemy officer, looking for the British, and knew the man would lose his nerve in just a second.
‘Fire!’
It was a small volley, but the last they would fire with greased patches, and it was murderous. The enemy dived for cover, threw themselves behind rocks or their own dead, and the Riflemen reloaded, spitting the bullets into the guns, tapping them down by hammering the butts on the ground and not even bothering with ramrods.
‘Back!’
There were a hundred skirmishers in front of them, pressing forward, lapping them, and the Riflemen went back, tap-loading, firing at their enemies, and always losing ground, going downhill towards the rest of the Company, who were getting closer and closer to the open ground of the valley.
‘Back!’ It was no place to die, this, not while the cavalry had still not appeared and there was a chance, however slim, that the Company could fall back to the far side of the valley. There was no time to think of that, only to keep the Riflemen out of range of the muskets, to hurry the Company down the hill, stopping and firing, running, reloading, and finding new cover. They were doing no damage to the enemy, but the French, terrified of rifles, kept their distance and did not seem to realize that the bullets were no longer spinning; that, bereft of the small leather patch, the rifles were less accurate than the ordinary musket. It was enough for the French that their opponents wore green, the ‘grasshoppers’ of the British army who could kill at three hundred paces and tear the heart out of an enemy skirmish line.
Pausing to watch the men go back, Sharpe glanced up the hill and saw the crest lined with the French companies. He noticed the uniforms were bright, unfaded by the sun, and he knew this was a fresh regiment, one of the new regiments that had been sent by Bonaparte to finish the Spanish business once and for all. Their Colonel was giving them a grandstand view of the fight and it annoyed Sharpe. No damned French recruit was going to watch his death! He looked at the voltigeurs, trying to find an officer to aim for, and it struck him, as he banged his rifle-butt on the ground, that only twenty minutes ago he had felt as if he were utterly alone on the face of the planet. Now he was outnumbered, ten to one, and the bastards were still coming, bolder now as the British reached the foot of the slope, and a ball smacked into the rock beside him and glanced up to hit Sharpe’s left armpit. It hurt like a dog chewing his flesh, and, throwing up the rifle for a quick shot, he suddenly knew the ricochet had done damage. He could hardly hold the rifle, but he squeezed the trigger and went backwards, keeping pace with his men and looking behind him, to see Knowles pausing on the very edge of the valley like a man fearful of pushing away from the shore. God damn it! There was no choice.
‘Back! Back!’
He ran to Knowles. ‘Come on. Cross the valley!’
Knowles was looking at his shoulder. ‘Sir! You’re hit!’
‘It’s nothing! Come on!’ He turned to the Riflemen, red eyes peering from blackened faces. ‘Form up, lads.’
The girl fell in like another Rifleman and he grinned at her, loving her for fighting like a man, for her eyes that sparkled with the hell of it, and then he waved his right arm.